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Dining Hall Distress

There are some things in this world that are truly terrifying. There are murders, nuclear weapons, giant mole rats, and college dining hall food, just to name a few. If the latter does not sound that scary, consider visiting West Virginia University. Here, one is bombarded with disgusting food as well as ridiculous prices. This is a disturbing problem, but not one without a solution.
A typical meal at the dining hall means limp vegetables, a mysterious meat like substance and perhaps some ice cream. The vegetables, when available, are cooked to the point of being drooping and devoid of nutritional content. Practically everything drips with grease. Salt is virtually the only spice used. The ice cream is not bad, but one cannot survive on ice cream alone. Sometimes, the dining halls offer even fewer options.
The lack of options is a problem for many students with special diets. One freshman conveyed her story as follows:
The first time I ate dinner at Stalnaker Dining Hall, the only option available was pizza that looked as though it was left over from World War II. I don't eat dairy, so I asked the cooks if this was all they were serving. "Well", one said, "we have cereal" and brought me a cup of soymilk. My dinner that night was cereal and soymilk, the exact same meal I had for breakfast.
The situation only gets worse. The lowest meal plan available is 10 meals a week. This costs $1,066 per semester, meaning each meal costs a student $7.61. No restaurant would stay in business if they charged this price for slimy pasta, iceberg lettuce, and pork chops that swim in lard. Somehow, the university has managed to create captive customers. All freshman must live at home or in a dormitory, and all students who live in a dormitory must buy a meal plan. Currently there are more than 3,500 freshman. With this kind of income, the dining halls are well funded, so money is not the problem.
Since lack of money is not the problem, it is not the solution either. There needs to be some sort of quality control; there is only one man for the job. His name is David Hardesty, the current president of West Virginia University. Part of his job requirement should be to eat at least one meal a day in a dining hall. This would solve all kinds of issues. Any normal person would be disgusted at the current state of the food quality. As the president, he would have the power to actually do something about it. Also, the dining hall staff would know that their work is under constant scrutiny by the president. This added pressure would result in better quality.
President Hardesty claims to be concerned about students. In his recent state of the university address, he said “WVU has always been a student-centered university, and we have sought to be more so in recent years.” A student has four necessities: food, sleep, classes, and clothes. Without decent food, a student can not perform to his full potential. In a study of 300 students, Dr. Abidoye linked healthy, balanced diets with better concentration, better learning ability, and a better sense of well being. As a student centered university, nutrition of the students should be a primary concern. The dining hall staff was unable to provide any summation of the nutrition facts, prohibiting students from knowing what they're really consuming.
The president of a university should devote his time to making sure the students are cared for. Eating what students eat is an excellent way to control quality and preserve the primary objective of West Virginia Universiy: to care for and educate the students..
Resources
Abidoye, R.O.; Eze, D.I. Comparative school performance through better health and nutrition in Nsukka, Enugu, Nigeria. Nutrition-Research. May 2000. 20 (5): 609-620.
West Virginia University At a Glance (2001); http://www.nis.wvu.edu/intro/ataglance.htm; News and Informaion Services

A matter of gravity

When I tell fellow students that my major is physics, the usual response is a disgusted look followed by some kind of moaning noise. “Ugh. I hate physics” is a phrase I’ve grown quite accustomed to hearing. Physics may not be the easiest subject, but studying it has brought me a kind of euphoric insight. I love physics, and do not understand the revolted attitude many of my peers harbor. One possible explanation is that many students simply do not understand physics. This led me to become curious about West Virginia University students’ knowledge of physics.   I designed a survey to quantify this idea. My initial expectations were low.
The survey I designed has only five questions, which are:
What is your standing (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior or grad student)?
What is your major?
Have you ever had a physics class?
If a pen is dropped on the moon, would it float away?
Does an electron orbit the nucleus like a planet orbits the sun?
For the last two questions, the students had the options of answering yes, no, or don’t know. I handed out 40 of these surveys to randomly selected people at the Mountainlair, in hopes of encountering a broad range of WVU students. I tried to get an even distribution of male and female students, although gender was not a factor on the survey.
I asked questions about the student’s academic details because I wondered if there were any correlation between class standing, major, having had a physics class and an ability to correctly answer the questions. I chose the question about the moon because it seemed like a simple test of a student’s understanding of gravity, one of the most basic concepts in physics. A gravitational attraction is associated with all bodies. The moon is a massive body, and objects on the moon are subjected to about 1/6 the acceleration that objects on the earth are. The pen would fall more slowly than if it were released on the earth, but it would definitely fall. Astronauts have walked on the surface of the moon; this would not be possible without gravity.
I chose the question about the electron because I wanted to gauge the students’ knowledge of a more recent, yet equally important concept. An electron does not, and could not orbit the nucleus like a planet orbits the sun. Charged particles that are accelerating emit electromagnetic radiation, reducing their energy. An object that is in an orbit is constantly accelerating (acceleration denotes a change in velocity, which is speed and direction. If an object’s direction changes, it is accelerating. A body moving in a circular or elliptical path is continuously changing directions; therefore, continuously accelerating.) If an electron were in a planet-like orbit, it would emit electromagnetic radiation, loose energy, and fall into the nucleus, making all atoms unstable. An atom does not really orbit.   There is a probability wave of where the electron might be in certain discrete energy levels, where the number of wavelengths is equal to the energy level of the electron. The idea that an electron is moving in a circle or ellipse around the nucleus is wrong.
The students I surveyed seemed generally confused about these questions. Several students asked me if they got the right answers, and seemed concerned about their lack of knowledge. I am confident that most of the students answered the questions to the best of their knowledge.
When all the answers were tallied, I found that 43% of the students got the moon question right, 47% got the question wrong, and 10% admitted to not knowing. I thought the moon question would be easy, and am a little shocked at these numbers. The students would have done better had they flipped a coin.

These results led me to become curious about who answered the question correctly, and who did not. I analyzed the following groups of students: freshman, sophomores, juniors, seniors, students who had a physics class, students who had not had a physics class, science/engineering majors, and non-science majors. Of course, individual students fell into more than one category. The groups that did the best on the moon question were sophomores and science majors. Only 5 sophomores were polled, so this result could be a fluke. Fifteen science majors responded, so this is more likely a good indication. Both of these groups had a 60% success rate.   The groups that did the worst were freshman and non-science majors. Freshmen got the answer right only 31% of the time, and non-science majors answered correctly only 32% of the time.

Upper classmen answered correctly more often than freshmen, having had a physics class increased the likeliness that a student could answer correctly, and science majors have a better grasp on the nature of gravity.
I expected the students to do better on the moon question than on the electron question, since the behavior of an electron in an atom is slightly confusing.   I asked “Does an electron orbit the nucleus like a planet orbits the sun?” The results were consistent with my expectations.   Fewer people got the answer right, and more students admitted to not knowing.

These results are more dramatic than those from the moon question. The students who had a physics class answered correctly more than twice as often as those who had not. The science majors answered correctly more than three times as often as non-science majors. Again, I don’t think there were enough sophomores questioned and that makes it difficult to fairly draw conclusions about their knowledge, and compare them to the other classes.
It is not fair to judge a student’s knowledge of all physics with two questions, but these two questions are basic enough and important enough to draw some conclusions. If a student does not understand that moon has gravity, it is fair to say that there is some significant knowledge missing. If a student does not know how an electron behaves in an atom, it is obvious that he cannot know how atoms would interact. This is a very important point in understanding physics and chemistry.
Overall, it seems that science majors have the best understanding of gravity and electrons. This is expected, since they would be the ones most likely to be interested in such concepts. Also, having a physics class helped students to correctly answer the questions. I find it slightly disturbing, however, that 50% of students who had a physics class did not know that a pen dropped on the moon would fall. This seems like an incredibly basic concept that every physics class should teach.
If I were to redo this survey, there are several things I would change. The results led me to become curious about why the students thought a pen would float away, after all, most people know that man has walked on the moon. Therefore, I would ask a follow up question such as “If you answered yes, why would the pen float away?” I also think it would be interesting to poll a general non-student population, and compare those results with the student results. I think it would be fairer to judge the students’ knowledge of physics if I were to include more problems in the questionnaire. It might also be interesting to ask “Do you like physics?” and analyze the results according to that question as well.
Although this survey could have been improved, the results are still interesting and insightful. The good news is that science majors seem to know more physics than non-science majors, and students who took physics know more physics than students who did not. The sad side, however, is that on both of the questions, the general responses could have been improved if the students had turned off their brain and randomly selected yes or no. The students seem to be confused about the basic physics that was tested, which could explain the reaction I have come to call the “ugh” response.

Humans and rats: two different species.
Animal Experimentation at West Virginia University

The issue of animal experimentation is a controversial subject that has been debated throughout history amongst the scientific community and within the last century as a result of the animal rights movement. Animal rights activists claim that all experiments on animals for human benefit should be halted, as they are unethical. Some scientists argue that animal experimentation does not have significance when applied to humans, because different species differ widely. Other scientists claim that animal experimentation is an invaluable tool that saves human lives. To fully explore the scientific and moral implications of animal experimentation would require an entire book devoted to the subject (there are many). However, there are specific issues at West Virginia University that need to be addressed concerning vivisection. Vivisection is the use of animals in an experiment or the dissection of animals. Currently, there are about 20 active experiments involving the use of animals at WVU. Many of these experiments involve invasive procedures and deliberate pain. In addition to often being cruel, animal experiments frequently create unreliable results.   Vivisection on the West Virginia University campus does exist, and can cause unnecessary pain and suffering.
One very active research project going on now in the physiology department is studying the effects of chronic renal disease in rats on nitric oxide levels. Nitric oxide is a regulator of blood flow. Chronic renal disease is basically a disease in the kidneys. Over the past year, this project has received about $700,000 in grants from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (a part of the National Institutes of Health, a government institution). In other words, the funding comes from tax dollars. The animals are given urea supplementation (basically, a compound found in urine) to encourage kidney failure, and the impact on their nitric oxide synthesis is studied. The objective of the research is to determine how human nitric oxide synthesis would be affected. The assumption is that a rat’s kidneys with an artificial disease behave the same way as a human’s kidneys with a natural disease. This cross-species experimentation rarely works. Even within the rodent genus, the species differ widely. The Wistar-Furth rats are resistant to kidney diseases, while Dahl rats are susceptible. These rats are much closer to each other than a human is to a rat.
In another study at West Virginia University in the pharmacology department, rats were repeatedly burned without any anesthesia until their natural pain fighting hormones were released. Another group of rats were given morphine injections directly into their brain, and then were subjected to the burning. Some of these rats were given a drug, cholecystokinin, which is known to make morphine more potent. Morphine was isolated from the poppy plant in 1806. It is one of the drugs we know the most about. The study found what had been known for a very long time: under stressed conditions morphine is not as potent, and when combined with cholecystokinin it becomes more potent. Being burned alive is not fun for any species. Rats may not be cuddly, but they do feel pain.
The point of such animal experimentation is to benefit human life. However, in the past, the studying of animal systems had detrimental effects when applied to people. Advocates of animal research point to the development of the polio vaccine by Sabin and Salk as proof of the validity of such experiments. However, the truth is that the development of the polio vaccine was actually delayed by the use of monkeys. Sabin himself said in 1984 “...work on prevention [of polio] was delayed by an erroneous conception of the nature of the human disease, based on misleading experimental models [of polio] in monkeys.” Chimpanzees share 99% of our genetic makeup, yet they are not affected by polio in the same way humans are, are not affected by HIV, and harbor dozens of viruses that are dangerous to humans. Over the years, assumptions based on animal models have lead to numerous problems. For an example, studies of cigarette smoking on animals lead scientists to believe that it did not cause cancer. Because of this, warning labels on cigarette cartons were delayed for years. Scores of people died from lung cancer because of this delay. The drugs Oraflex, Selacryn, Zomax, Suprol, and Meritol were all thought to be safe because of the predictions based on animal experimentation. But when they were made available, they caused devastating side effects in humans (including death) and were taken off the market. Every species is unique, and reacts uniquely to similar circumstances. Rats can live quite happily in sewers. Humans can’t.
There are many alternatives to animal experimentation that are less expensive, more reliable, and less cruel. Studies performed in test tubes have been very successful; clinical and epidemiological studies also provide insightful data into the nature of disease in humans. With the knowledge we have today of the human gene and cellular function much of animal testing is obsolete. For the particular example of the kidney disease study, perhaps a study of humans with kidney disease would be more appropriate. It is possible to measure the amount of nitric oxide in a human, just as it is in a rat.
Human volunteers would be volunteers, obviously. They would be given the choice of whether or not to participate in a study. Animals used in experiments are not volunteers. They are bred by companies specializing in supplying the vivisection industry with animals. They are living creatures that feel pain and are capable of suffering. The life of a lab rat is not a desirable one.
Unfortunately, there are many animals at West Virginia University with undesirable lives. The university farm experiments with ways to produce more livestock in a shorter period of time. Three classes require dissection. Other medical experiments involving animals at WVU include starving morphine addicted pigeons, administering repeated muscle strains on animals, subjecting infant rodents to diesel exhaust, feeding mice Propanil (an herbicide), and weighing down quails to measure muscle growth. Such studies on animals do not tell the whole picture. There needs to be more studies with human subjects, or human tissue. The gain to science would be greater. The cruelty would be less.
The scientists involved in these experiments are not bad people. The scientific community has used animal experiments for a very long time. The tradition started when religious leaders forbade the dissection of human corpses. Science is slow to give up its traditions, but fortunately, vivisection has been on the decline thanks to more modern approaches. Vivisection continues because in the scientific community, a researcher publishes or perishes. Animal experiments offer a way to collect a great quantity of data. Unfortunately, this data can be harmful to animals and humans alike.
Science is the noble pursuit of truth. It has benefited every person in our society. The noble nature of science need not be stained with the blood of our fellow creature. Dr. Charles Mayo, founder of the famous Mayo Clinic best summed up the practice of vivisection when he said, “I abhor vivisection. It should at least be curbed. Better, it should be abolished. I know of no achievement through vivisection, no scientific discovery, that could not have been obtained without such barbarism and cruelty. The whole thing is evil.”